


The Gift

by ThePagemistress



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 13:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13236498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePagemistress/pseuds/ThePagemistress
Summary: Lord Alfred is not adjusting all that well since the shooting. His mind is perpetually elsewhere and often places he doesn't want it to be. Wilhelmina offers him an early Christmas gift to try and help him through it.





	The Gift

**Author's Note:**

> What I would have preferred to happen in the Christmas episode which I have completely rejected as canon. My first attempt at anything for this fandom so be gentle, please!

Lord Alfred could count the number of days since it happened. He tried not to. It didn’t help. Nothing helped. He knew that he was partly to blame. He wasn’t exactly trying to move on. Every morning he would wake up and put the black armband on, almost like a ceremony. A mini-funeral, day after day.

He found himself caught between trying to recall memories and trying to condemn them from his mind altogether. Instead, he found he could only replay their last conversation together, over and over. Regret sat heavy in his stomach.

He would still take that bitterness over the sluggish realisation he experienced every morning. In that brief time between sleep and awake, where his dreams were still clinging to the edges of his mind, Drummond was as alive as ever. The seconds that followed, where the reality chased sleep away, often left his throat tight with emotion, tears rolling down his cheeks.

He should have known that Christmas would be particularly hard to bear.

As he floated through the palace, mind wandering as he watched the staff go about their decorating to the Prince’s wishes, his eyes fell on one of the archways. While it was barren at the moment, he remembered the mistletoe that had hung from above the year before.

It led to many an awkward encounter among the household (perhaps leading to its absence this year) but Lord Alfred had found himself hovering around it, amused at the way people would falter and stutter around those they were so familiar thanks to the small shrub.

When Drummond had appeared, heading towards it, a wicked smirk slid across Alfred’s face as he made to meet him partway. Under the archway.

“Mr Drummond, how wonderful to see you.”

“And you, Lord Alfred,” Drummond had said with that easy smile. “I was just looking to see if-“

“My, my, we seem to have ourselves a predicament,” Alfred interrupted, mock consternation clear on his face.

Drummond hesitated, thrown off guard. “I’m sorry?”

Alfred pointed to the mistletoe hanging over their heads, eyes darting across to Drummond to gauge a reaction. Aside from a slight tensing, he gave nothing away. “We appear to have found ourselves under a sprig of mistletoe. It’s been causing quite the problem for people the last few days. Many of the servants have taken to bypassing this corridor altogether.”

Drummond hummed to himself. “I see. So you were aware it was here, then.”

Alfred paused; tripped up in his own ploy. But he wasn’t one to be bested so he pressed on. “It seems in my haste to greet you, it clear slipped my mind.”

“I see,” Drummond repeated, attempting to fight down a fond grin. Poorly, as usual. “Well, perhaps we had better continue this conversation elsewhere. I wouldn’t want to cause any more problems, after all.”

“Ah, but you see it is bad luck to ignore the call of the mistletoe,” Alfred continued, serious as anything.

“Is it now? Curious, I had never heard this.”

“Oh yes, it’s in many, _many_ , ancient Norse texts. And Greek,” he said, edging a little closer, gratified when Drummond made no attempt to move away.

“Fascinating,” Drummond continued, trying to produce a similar mask of stoicism over his amusement. “I was under the impression that it was more of a pagan practice.”

“It’s in many, many pagan texts too. It’s very well known, I’m surprised you’re not aware of it, Drummond, a learned man such as yourself.”

The smile was back and Alfred couldn’t help but return it, just briefly, before continuing with his ruse. “Well,” Drummond said. “This is quite the predicament then, you’re right. What would you suggest?”

And right up until that point, it had been a game. A jest. A silly back and forth with no real intent. But there had always been intent, right from the start. Alfred nudged and coaxed and teased and charmed, always _just_ on the right side of being able to laugh things off. To be safe. It was a method he had honed over many years. A method that Drummond didn’t possess.

Because he was open and eager in a way that scared Alfred, almost. Even though he was able to put a name to what Drummond felt before he himself could, Drummond _felt_ it clear enough for the both of them. He could tell from the way Drummond watched him closely, waiting for his response. Alfred knew he could have it all right now. The things he had been trying to nudge and coax and tease and charm out of the man the last several months. And it scared him.

Just as it had scared him when Drummond had announced he was ending his engagement. He saw the same faith and earnestness in his eyes then as he had under the mistletoe. The belief that if Alfred gave the go ahead, everything would be fine. But how could it be fine? How could it ever be fine? And so he had sabotaged them at the dinner, just as he sabotaged them that Christmas under the mistletoe when he suddenly pulled back, claiming he was needed elsewhere, leaving Drummond standing under the archway. The hurt on his face had been much more painful the second time around.

“Lord Alfred?”

Alfred startled at the voice behind him, jolting him out of the memory. He noticed how his fingers ached from where they had been clenched tightly at his sides. No matter what, everything always came back to that dinner. Always.

“Miss Coke,” he said, offering her a weak smile as she approached with cautious footsteps. “I hope you weren’t trying to get my attention for long. I was…reminiscing.”

Wilhelmina lowered her head in understanding. She’d been doing a lot of that lately. He liked to keep to himself for the most part but he couldn’t deny that her presence and her…unique understanding of the situation had been a help in the darkest hours when he just needed to get things off his chest. He hated to burden her with it but she would always just shake her head whenever he tried to apologise or brush it off as if it were nothing.

“A happy memory this time, I hope?” she asked, looking towards the archway as if she could decipher what he had been seeing.

“Not today,” he said, his smile stronger now but no less sad. “Did you need me for something? Because otherwise I think I will retire-“

“Oh!” she said, as if just remembering herself what she had troubled him for. “I, um. Well, I know that we are supposed to be exchanging gifts later but I thought… Well, I thought I had better give you this away from the others. Just in case.”

Alfred tilted his head, frowning in question as she handed him the brown parcel she had been holding in her hands. He ignored the way his fingers trembled as he reached out for it, trying to tamp down the fear at what could be inside.

Unwrapping it, he revealed a book. The Iliad. He’d mentioned it in passing to her before. He thought he may have even mentioned his conversation with Drummond about it in one of his weaker moments too. Perhaps that was why she deemed it inappropriate to gift in front of others. But why she would think he didn’t own a copy for himself, he was unsure. It was one of his most revisited tomes, after all.

Perhaps sensing his confusion or merely just aggrieved that he had not thanked her for the gift, Wilhelmina spoke up. “Florence wanted me to have something to remember him by. I remembered you mentioning it,” she said, nodding to the book, “and so I asked if it were maybe still in her possession. I think she thought me rather odd but…” She trailed off as she continued to watch Alfred who seemed to be rooted to the spot. “Was it a mistake to give you such a thing?”

Alfred couldn’t make his voice work. He suddenly understood. This wasn’t a copy of The Iliad. This was _his_ copy of The Iliad. The same one he had taken to Scotland with him. The same one that had emboldened him enough to finally make the leap while Alfred had been endlessly teetering on the precipice.

“No, it’s-“ His voice was tighter than he wanted, his emotions raw. Now it was clear why it was not suited for the company of others. Such a reaction would be hard to explain away. “I couldn’t have asked for anything better, Miss Coke. Wilhelmina.” She smiled at him, pleased with her deed. “If you don’t mind, I would like to…” he gestured in the direction of his room. She nodded.

“Oh, of course. Merry Christmas, Lord Alfred,” she said with a small curtsy.

“And to you, Miss Coke,” he returned, offering a small bow before they parted ways.

~*~

It shouldn’t have been surprising that Drummond liked to make notes. He was a thoughtful man, someone who enjoyed critical thinking and debate. But when Alfred, alone in his room, had opened the book, it still felt like a punch in the gut to see his handwriting in the margins of the pages.

Some were so small and erratic, they were illegible. Others were simply underlined passages that he had perhaps been particularly fond of or maybe just wanted to remember. Alfred let out a watery laugh as he noticed the occasional correction of a spelling error, imagining him frowning at the disruption in his reading by the offending word.

As he flicked through the pages, rubbing the paper between his fingers, he was seized by an unexpected wave of jealousy. How many other books did he write in? Did dear Florence also possess these? Would she look back on them with as much fondness and understanding as he would? Would she look back on them at all? Or would they just be given away so easily as this one?

He had only encountered her once more since the funeral. He overheard someone tell her how when their beloved had died, they would have done anything to take their place. He heard her agree, saying that he had much left to do in the world and it wasn’t his time. And all he remembered thinking was _How selfish._

How could anyone wish this kind of grief-stricken agony on someone they claimed to love? The restless nights. The empty days. The finite memories, twisting in the mind just as a knife in the heart. The thought was unbearable. But perhaps not as unbearable as the thought that he might not grieve as much were he in Alfred’s position.

He laughed, a mirthless chuckle, as he looked down at the passage he had turned to. Achilles, weeping over the body of Petroclus. _The lengths Achilles went to to honour his friend…_ He could still hear the hesitation, the uncertainty in his voice. His own attempt at coaxing, at testing the waters to see if Alfred would take the bait. He happily did, offering that assurance that he was always seeking. An unspoken understanding. 

No. He would grieve the same were their roles reversed. It was the one consolation Alfred could take. That he was the one left to grieve instead of him. To bear the pain of life.

As he flicked to the back of the book, an envelope came loose, dropping onto the desk. Familiar handwriting stared back at him for it was his own. Frowning, he pulled the paper out from inside and let out a sharp breath as he realised what it was. The first personal communication he ever sent him. It was short, nothing more than a few lines inviting him out for drinks one evening. The first time he ever addressed him as Edward. He distinctly remembered not receiving a response, left wondering if it had ever arrived. Apparently it had.

Alfred collapsed back into his chair, the book falling closed while he clutched the envelope in his hand, tapping it against his lips. His eyes drifted skyward, a weary smile forming on his face. “Oh, the lengths I would go to to honour you my dearest friend. Achilles couldn’t even compare.” And he pressed a kiss to his name adorning the envelope and slipped it back in the book, placing it proudly beside his own copy of The Iliad.


End file.
